Struggle for justice — civil rights photography in America

Photographer Charles Moore sits with a US marshall injured during riots at the integration of the University of Mississippi. While photographing after blacks were finally allowed into the college, Moore had concrete hurled at him, and youths beat him up. "To people who were really bigoted, I was the worst enemy, a Southern boy working for Life magazine," he told USA Today in 1991.

Young women sing freedom songs as they march toward Montgomery, Alabama, during the Selma to Montgomery March for Voting Rights in 1965 to enable African-American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote. "The images on display are compelling, beautiful, disturbing and encouraging — just like the history they document," says Don Carleton, executive director of the Briscoe Center.

Demonstrators huddled in a doorway seek shelter from hoses turned on them. The water propelled at a force of 100 pounds per square inch. Photojournalists often put themselves in harm's way to document the violent response to civil rights activism. Their work helped to galvanize public support for the civil rights movement and its legislative goals.

Martin Luther King, Jr., one of the key civil rights movement leaders, is arrested on trumped-up charges of "loitering" in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1958. Racial segregation dominated American culture for the first half of the 20th century. Many states, especially in the South, used segregation to systematically discriminate against blacks in all areas of public life.

Ray Robinson, a US civil rights activist, is dragged with a police baton at his throat while being arrested outside the US Supreme Court. Regardless of the various differences between civil rights leaders and organizations, they shared a desire to repeal laws meant to segregate and disenfranchise African-Americans. They were often met with violence and intimidation by local officials and mobs.

White hecklers confront civil rights marchers from behind a Confederate flag during the Selma to Montgomery March for Voting Rights in 1963. In addition to covering police violence, photojournalists also captured the intimidating, unsavory tone of counterprotests by some whites.

Members of the Ku Klux Klan, which advocated white supremacy and white nationalism. Photojournalists' work shocked the American public and discredited opposition to civil rights legislation. "[These images] continue to touch upon issues still very much with us," Carleton says. "They are able to conjure within us questions about the America we live in today as well as the one we've inherited."

Amelia Boynton is assisted as she lies on the ground with other injured civil rights marchers after being attacked by state troopers during the Selma to Montgomery March for Voting Rights. Marches and protests during the 1960s opened the door for major legislation. Schools and colleges began to integrate, black Americans gained political rights, and American culture was challenged and changed.